A dragon first spends fifty plus years trapped as an enchanted teapot. Then, as World War II is ending, the dragon, Grisha, is freed from his teapot spell entrapment, and he follows the rest of the dragons to Vienna where he is again trapped in a dead-end job at a castle and not allowed to leave the city. When Grisha meets Maggie at the Blaue Bar, the two of them embark up on a quest to free the dragons who have been put to sleep and imprisoned in an underground space. Maggie and her father, Alexander the poet, are two of the very few people who can truly see Grisha and the other un-imprisoned dragons, except that the tourists can see Grisha, too, and ask him questions in his day-job as a tour guide at the castle.

I found this one to be really odd. I kept wanting to read it as allegory, in the way that C.S. Lewis insisted his Narnia books were NOT allegorical, but I couldn’t make anything fit. Maybe it’s just my way of reading. Is it a book about the Holocaust? No, although there are elements that evoke a persecuted and misunderstood minority. About the industrial revolution and modernity and its effect on faith and whimsy and beauty? Maybe, kinda sorta. About Communism and it’s effect on Eastern Europe? Not really. It’s set mostly in an alternate history fantasy Vienna. It’s not really any of those things, just odd, and contemplative and a little slow. But I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to contemplate or think about.

And the rules of the story or the world in which it was set kept shifting in a disconcerting way. The cats are evil. No, not really evil. Well, maybe. Most people can’t see the dragons, but the tourists can see and talk to the dragons who work as caretakers and tour guides at old castles. Magic requires a price. So, it’s kind of cruel. But we want to go back and live in a magical world anyway. Nostalgic longing for the days of magic abounds. Memories are malleable and fragile. Memories are the most important part of who we are. I guess it did make me think, but I’m still not sure what I think about the book as a whole. (I did find the couple of times that Maggie’s father uses God’s name in vain to be disconcerting, annoying, unnecessary and perhaps out of character.)

It’s a decent book, but I’m not sure who would like it enough to stick with it. Amazon says it’s about “the transformative power of friendship”, and I did like the friendship between Maggie and Grisha. However, that wasn’t enough to really pull me into the story and make me believe in magical Viennese dragons.

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.